


“No, stop!”

by AutisticWriter



Series: Whumptober [4]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Age Regression, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Autism, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Tanaka Gundham, Caring, Chapter 3, Crying, Despair Disease (Dangan Ronpa), During Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, One Shot, Prompt Fic, Self-Harm, Whump, Whumptober 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-06
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-27 06:09:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16213073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutisticWriter/pseuds/AutisticWriter
Summary: When Gundham, Akane and Nagito catch the Despair Disease, the remaining students struggle to cope. And when an overworked Mikan appears to be getting sick too, Hajime ends up on nursing duty.[Prompt 4: “No, stop!”]





	“No, stop!”

When Hajime walks into the hotel restaurant, he is met by a strange sight. Akane sobs in the corner of the room, proper, hacking sobs escaping her as tears run down her face. Nagito wanders over to her and starts telling her different students have died than really did, confusing her with a weirdly vacant smile on his face. And Gundam hunches under one of the tables, what Hajime can see of his body rocking back and forth. What the fuck is going on?

“Akane, why are you crying?” he says, heading over to her first. But all he can get from Akane is rambles about being sorry for things she doesn’t explain, in between gutwrenching sobs.

“Nagito?” Hajime says, approaching Nagito instead (despite not really wanting to see the deceptive bastard). “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing’s wrong, Hajime,” Nagito says, grinning. “Oh, by the way, my name is actually Makoto.”

“No it isn’t. Stop lying.”

As Nagito insists he isn’t lying, Hajime tries the final weird-acting student. He goes to the table Gundham hides under, and crouches down. Now with a full view of the scene (and trying to block the image of what he saw the last time he looked under a table out of his mind), he sees Gudham sat hunched up with his face buried in his knees, legs hugged to his chest. He rocks and rocks, his hamsters poking out of his scarf and looking at him.

“Gundham?” he says, whispering.

Gundham jumps, sitting up straight with such speed he smacks his head against the table. He lets out a groan, and looks at Hajime. His hair is messy, like he hasn’t styled it this morning, and his eyes are both the same colour, suggesting he normally wears a contact lens.

“L-Leave me alone,” Gundham says, but he mumbles and his voice trembles with fear. His words come out stilted, like he has to force his tongue to form them. And he pulls up his scarf to cover his mouth, screwing his eyes up.

“Hey, are you okay?”

Gundham shakes his head. “Scared. Where am I?”

Oh shit. This is really bad.

He wants to try and get more out of Gundham, but gets distracted when Mikan runs into the room.

“Oh, there y-you are, Nagito!” she cries, several of the others hurtling up the stairs into the room.

The rumbling footsteps make Gundham whimper, whilst Akane cries louder and Nagito wanders over to them to probably talk more bullshit.

“Why are you looking for him?” Hajime says, wandering over to Mikan.

“He, he’s sick. He’s got a f-fever,” Mikan explains.

“No I haven’t,” Nagito says, rather pleasantly.

“Yes y-you have.”

“Hey, uh, Akane and Gundham are acting weird too,” Hajime says. He points to Akane, who sobs and covers her face.

Several of the girls hurry over to Akane, trying to comfort her in that way girls seem so good at. But it doesn’t work on Akane.

“H-Hey, she’s got a fever too,” Mikan says, pressing her hand to Akane’s forehead. “Wh-Where’s Gundham?”

“He’s not under the table,” Nagito mumbles.

Rolling his eyes, Hajime says, “Under this table. He’s… acting scared and seems to be struggling to speak and doesn’t know where he is.”

Mikan crouches beside him, and says, “Gundham? Can I touch your forehead?”

But Gundham shakes his head, rocking again.

“Well, can Hajime?”

Gundham looks at Hajime, and he must remember him from their conversation only a couple of minutes ago. He doesn’t stop rocking, but nods.

So Hajime touches Gundham’s forehead, and finds it clammy and burning hot. “Yeah, a fever.”

“Oh no. Wh-What are we going t-to do?” Mikan says, looking close to tears.

The room breaks into nervous chatter, all the whole Nagito mumbles nonsense and Akane wails and Gundham cowers under the table – and as the noise gets louder, he whimpers and clamps his hands over his ears.

And then fucking Monokuma shows up. With a horribly gleeful tone to his annoying voice, he tells them something terrifying: the three sick students have the Despair Disease. And it’s a disease that fucks with their minds and gives them a horrible fever, and it might be contagious. Oh shit.

“About their symptoms, that is a very interesting topic,” Monokuma says. “It makes some people’s personalities reverse, whilst others just go totally strange. Which is why Akane is a wimp now, but these two have just gone mental. Nagito has become a compulsive liar, whilst Gundham, well, it’s caused him to age regress. Upupu! Yeah, he’s acting like himself as a kid. Anyway, this whole thing is your next motive. So have fun!”

And as Monokuma fucks off, they all stare at each other. What the hell are they going to do?

\---

They relocate the three sick students to the hospital on the third island (Akane cried so hard she needed someone to hold her hand, Nagito had fainted and needed to be carried, and Gundham stumbled on his feet, trailing behind Hajime and Chiaki whilst chewing on his bottom lip), and Mikan stays to be their nurse for the obvious reason.

But things are already getting worse. Nagito runs a high fever, and is basically comatose as he lies in bed, drenched in sweat. Akane only stays calm with someone to stay with her, so she starts sobbing whenever Mikan leaves her room (and Monokuma has banned anyone else staying at night). And Gundham… whenever Mikan enters his room, she finds him curled up under the bed, hospital gown torn off and lying in a heap on the floor.

“Gundham, what’s the matter?” she asks, trying to coax him out from under the bed.

“Hurts,” he mumbles.

“What h-hurts?”

“Gown.”

“What?”

“Hurts my skin.”

“Is, is your s-skin sensitive?” Mikan says.

He nods.

“Well, d-do you want to wear the b-bottom layers of your n-normal clothes instead?”

He nods again. “Th-Thank you.”

Just what is wrong with him? Monokuma said he’s age regressing, but why was he like this as a kid?

\---

Hajime enters the hospital at the time for his communications with the guys staying in the motel (as he and Fuyuhiko agreed to help Mikan look after the sick guys, they’ve been quarantined too), but he’s the only one here. Hoping to kill some time, he wanders into the hallway – and sees it.

Gundham stands in the hallway in just a vest and his boxer shorts, hands gripping the sides of his head. He hunches forwards, forehead pressed against the wall, and takes in slow, jagged breaths.

“Hey, why’re you out of bed?” Hajime says, approaching him.

But Gundham flinches away, gasping. “G-Go away.”

“No, something’s wrong. And you should go back to bed.”

“K-Keeps wanting… take tem-temperature. Thermometer hurts my ears. I h-hate it here. I want my bedroom! Want my hamsters!” Gundham cries, and he jerks his head back, only to slam his forehead against the wall. “Hate it!”

Gundham bangs his head again, hard enough for the sound to echo around the quiet hallway.

“No, stop!” Hajime says, dashing forwards. On top of this disease, he doesn’t want Gundham cracking his skull open. “Gundham, you’ll hurt yourself.”

But Gundham doesn’t seem to hear him. He has broken, banging his head against the wall as tears start to stream down his face. He drops to his knees, smacking his head again and again as jagged sobs escape his throat.

Hajime reaches out to touch his shoulder, but Gundham slaps his hand away.

“What’s the matter? Gundham?”

“Huh, whassa noise?”

Hajime turns his head, and spots Akane sticking her head out of her bedroom door. Her skin shines with fever, sweat running down her face and her hair stuck flat to her head. When she sees the sobbing, self-harming Gundham, she bursts out crying again, howling with sobs.

“What, what’s he doing?” she cries, tears running down her face. “Oh God, he’s gonna get hurt too, just like Coach Nekumaru!”

He hates to see Akane cry, but Gundham’s behaviour is more pressing right now. And where is Mikan?

“No, he’s not,” Hajime says, although he can see deep red marks already starting to pattern Gundham’s face. “Go back to bed, Akane.”

She sniffs, snot running down her face. “B-But what’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. He’s just… broken down. Gundham, please stop hurting yourself.”

If Gundham hears him, he doesn’t react. He just sobs and sobs with his forehead pressed against the wall, and sometimes smacks it against the wall with a cry of pain. Hajime tries to put a hand on Gundham’s shoulder again, but Gundham slaps his hand away hard enough to leave his skin stinging.

“Okay, I won’t touch you.” Pressure is welling up inside his chest, fear and confusion and sleep deprivation all addling his brain, and Hajime doesn’t know what to do. “Akane, stop crying. Where’s Mikan?”

“I th-think she went to the on-call room,” Akane says, sniffing again.

“Well, can you get her?”

Akane doesn’t stop sobbing, but nods and hurries off as fast as she can on wobbly legs.

Hajime stares at Gundham, wincing as he sees the bruising getting worse and worse. And out of desperation, he dashes into Gundham’s empty patient room, grabs a pillow and crouches down beside Gundham.

“Hey, if you really need to bang your head,” Hajime says, because there must be some weird reason in Gundham’s brain for why he keeps banging his head against the wall. “Please, do it against this.”

He holds out the pillow, expecting to be ignored. But his words finally get through to Gundham, who grabs the pillow and hugs it to his chest. He buries his face in it, muffling his sobs. And when he next bangs his head, he keeps the pillow stuck to his face, and muffles the blow with the cushion. Which is much better than before.

“Oh, I’m s-so sorry for not waking up!” Mikan cries, signalling her arrival.

She and Akane round the corner by the staircase and hurry over, and Hajime puts his finger to his lips.

“Be quiet,” he says, starting to realise what’s setting off Gundham; the moment the sobbing Akane left the room, he banged his head less, and has started crying louder now they’ve returned. “The noise seems to be making him worse.”

Akane tries her best to muffle her sobs, despite looking like she might faint. Mikan sees this, and says, “You should go back t-to bed, Akane.”

“But I don’t wanna be alone,” Akane whines, rubbing her bloodshot eyes.

“Well, just sit down and wait a minute, okay,” Mikan says, helping Akane slump to the floor. Once Akane sits in a very revealing position (Hajime looks away, blushing), Mikan comes over to Gundham and kneels beside him. “What’s the matter, G-Gundham?”

“Don’t touch him,” Hajime says, rubbing his stinging hand. “It makes him worse.”

“Oh. Uh, so, what happened, Hajime?”

“I don’t know. I just came in and found him grabbing the sides of his head and looking terrified. When I tried to talk to him, he started banging his head against the wall. Loud noises and touching him seem to make his condition worse. Do… you have a clue what’s happened?”

Mikan stares at Gundham, a nervous frown pinching her forehead. “Um… could it be a m-meltdown?”

“Huh?”

“Well, I was just thinking. Gundham’s quite socially awkward, isn’t he, and in this state he, he’s really sensitive to everything. I-if he’s autistic, then this could be a meltdown.”

“You think he’s autistic?”

“It makes sense. Anyway, this should end soon, and then we can help him back to bed.” Mikan yawns, blinking slowly, and she looks like she could fall asleep sitting up.

“Hey, you’re exhausted, aren’t you?”

“Um, well, y-yeah. I’ve been nursing nonstop.”

“Well I think you need a break. Being tired might make it easier for you to get the disease.” And even though spending his night in a hospital isn’t high on his bucket list, Hajime says, “I can be on nurse duty tonight. You go back to your cottage, okay.”

Mikan stares at him, and then smiles, tears in her eyes. “Hajime, that’s s-so kind of you. Are you sure y-you’ll be okay?”

 _I fucking hope so_ , he thinks.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he says.

\---

Half an hour later, Mikan has gone back to the cottages with Fuyuhiko, and Gundham has calmed down. He still sobs, but has now curled up on the floor in the foetal position, eyes screwed up.

Leaving the much calmer Gundham alone for a minute, Hajime goes into Nagito’s room, passing Akane, who has fallen asleep on the floor. Nagito still runs a high fever, but, thankfully, he hasn’t gotten any worse. All it takes is a new flannel on Nagito’s head and a quick check of his vital signs (Mikan explained it all to him), and he can leave the sleeping Nagito alone.

Back in the hallway, he nudges Akane awake and leads her into her room. She climbs into bed, rubbing her eyes, and smiles weakly at Hajime. And her fatigue is so strong that she falls asleep in seconds, and he can leave the room without hearing her sobs.

And then Gundham is the only one left. Seeing that Gundham has fallen asleep, Hajime gets him a blanket and covers him up, not wanting to wake the exhausted guy and possibly set him off again to drag him ten metres away into bed.

With his patients sorted, Hajime wanders into the lobby and sets himself up a bed on some of the chairs (he would go upstairs, but he wants to be able to keep Gundham, who only lies on the hallway floor, safe). And he tries to go to sleep, but then…

“Hey, I thought I told you no sleeping at the hospital!” Monokuma yells, springing up from nowhere and glaring at Hajime.

“I’m the nurse, fuck off,” Hajime mutters, closing his eyes.

And although he grumbles, Monokuma does indeed fuck off. And Hajime manages to fall asleep, glad everything has calmed down – and hoping that nothing will go wrong.


End file.
